1. Field
The present disclosure relates to retrieving and executing a Basic Input Output System (BIOS) image that is divided into at least two parts and, more particularly, to retrieving and executing a BIOS image in a blade server environment utilizing a service processor and a blade management agent.
2. Background Information
Typically, the operation of a computer or processing system (hereafter, “computer”) may be divided into two stages, pre-boot and runtime. The pre-boot process or phase often comprises starting or resetting a computer. When first turned on (cold boot) or reset/rebooted (warm boot), a computer executes the software that loads and starts the computer's operating system and prepares it for use. This software is typically referred to as a Basic Input Output System (BIOS). Thus, the computer can be said to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The runtime process or phase often occurs after the pre-boot phase and includes the execution of an operating system and other user applications. The runtime phase is typically the phase that users interact with the computer. Thus, the computer can be said to being running application programs. It is contemplated that a computer or processing system includes devices, such as, for example, mobile or stationary computers, personal digital assistants, telecommunication devices and/or similar devices that each include a processor, a storage medium readable or accessible by the processor (including volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements).
A blade architecture is a variation on the computer server architecture. Typically in a blade architecture, a blade card (also referred to as a “blade”) may be a single board which contains the core components of a server. These core components may include devices, such as, for example, a chipset, a processor and a Basic Input Output System (BIOS) image; however, these are merely a few non-limiting examples. A number of these blade cards are often designed to be housed in a chassis that provides access to a number of shared resources, such as, for example, power, cooling, network access, input device(s), and video output(s); however, again these are merely a few non-limiting examples. The number of blade cards are often provided access to the shared resource via a chassis backplane.
The blade architecture allows a number of servers, on the blade cards, to be housed with a single chassis; whereas, a more traditional server architecture would only allow one server to be housed within a chassis. Blade cards typically may be easily installed and removed from the chassis. Generally, all of the blade cards in a blade server (the chassis and collation of blade cards) independently boot an operating system.
Often in order to update the BIOS of a server's blade card the particular blade card is rebooted into a service partition and a flash update utility is executed. This may copy the new BIOS from the service partition, or other storage medium, onto the blade card. Another technique to update the BIOS of a blade card involves utilizing a special BIOS recovery mechanism. The current techniques require that the entire blade server be effectively “off-line” as an individual blade card is updated. This is because the updated blade card must has sole access to the server's shared resources, preventing the other blade cards from utilizing the shared resources. Furthermore, each individual blade card must be updated separately. This serial updating of the blade card BIOS generally involves a great deal of time. Also, the blade cards of the server may not be homogeneous and may require different BIOS images. Therefore, a system administrator would have to handle a number of versions of BIOS images during the updating process. A need, therefore, exists for an improved system or technique for retrieving and executing a BIOS image.